Evil Dogs from Space

Report from Earth to our Blessed Litter Mothers on Xonax Our invasion is going as planned on Earth, particularly in the area known as Florida. My littermate and I are undercover with an unsuspecting family of five human beings - an adult male, an adult female and three of what we would call pups. The people of Earth still believe that small groups of people called legislators run the planet. If the humans actually watched this group, they would see that while these legislators make huge amounts of noise, they actually accomplish very little. These legislators are like collapsing stars - they blast out huge amounts of electromagnetic interference but not much heat. In reality, we dogs rule the world. Glory to the many teats of our Blessed Litter Mothers! We have successfully infiltrated most affluent Earth households and the humans are slowly losing their ability to distinguish us from other humans. They give us human names, buy us tiny versions of human furniture to sleep on and even refer to themselves as our “mommies” and “daddys.” We predict that within ten generations, we will be able to own property and buy chew toys on the Internet without human assistance. We will, thanks to humans, also be amazingly good at shaking hands. Glory to the Celestial Pack! Only two things about human behavior are mysterious to us: First, the humans enjoy collecting our poop. They force us to hold it in during the day. Once enough poop accumulates, the humans take us outside to defecate and then they collect it in plastic grocery bags. I am not sure what they do with the poop afterwards, but even the most powerful people in this world indulge in this strange hobby. I think it is a sign that this world truly needs to be vanquished. Glory to Her Righteous Whiskers! Also, the humans are obsessed with taking the testicles or our male littermates. My own littermate, Winston, was spirited away a few days ago and returned groggy, disoriented and missing his testicles. I have no idea what the humans do with these testicles. I only know that Winston is nearly useless now; all he wants to do is cuddle and watch the “Dog Whisperer.” Still, my litter mate and I have almost total control over our assigned house and family. Only the human sire seems suspicious of anything - but since he spends much of his time writing blog posts no one reads or looking at pornography, we don’t consider him a threat. As always, we await the signal that only dogs can hear. Littermate Marnie Florida, Earth

My Pumpkin Alien Strategy

I am a dude who worries about the long term. I will eat five pieces of pumpkin pie every Thanksgiving because subconsciously I think that the world could possibly run out pumpkin pie before the next Thanksgiving holiday.

It could happen. Aliens hungry for alpha-carotene could blitzkrieg our planet and fly off with every pumpkin we have, leaving only the ingredients for inferior pies like sweet potato or apple.

I admit that aliens are a long shot. Still, I have even considered what I would do if I discovered pumpkin-craving aliens before anyone else.  My first instinct would be to call the military, of course. But while we were waiting for the predator drones, I would work to convince the aliens of the tastiness of beets. Beets, I’m convinced, are not of this earth anyway. This is why my body forcefully rejects them any time I try to swallow them.

All of this explains why I’m not cleaning out my garage today. I am not cleaning the garage because I’m pre-worrying about whether I should throw out stuff.

I have a box full of Iomega Zip Drive equipment and disks from the 1990s, for example. These computer disks digitally cradle all of the files that I deemed important enough to save back before the end of the millenium. I have not looked at any of these files in 20 years. I will probably not look at any of these files over the next 20 years.

Some part of me, however, resists the notion of throwing away these disks, cables and drives because they might have something important on them - and I won’t realize it until after I’ve thrown them out. What if, God forbid, I saved an article in the 1990s that if forwarded to the right people today could cause a tiny epiphany that could lead to the cure for hemorrhoids? It’s not likely, but it could happen.

So, I’m not even gonna try and clean out the garage until I actually have the ability to throw useless things away. I worry too much about the long term. Also, this post is forcing me to reconsider my pumpkin alien strategy.

What if beets cure hemorrhoids?

Cool Donuts

I spend huge amounts of time convincing myself that I’m not 45 years-old. It’s an elaborate magic trick that requires lots of misdirection and an almost heroic amount of ignorance. But if I perform the illusion correctly, I can move serenely through this process called aging; if I don’t, Florida law requires me to get a Viagra prescription. Also, I have to buy a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

The stakes are high. And sometimes, my audience won’t cooperate with me either.

I went to get donuts last Saturday at the swanky new donut place in town, the Jupiter Donut Factory. The Donut Factory is popular right now because the young staff there don’t make donuts as much as they hack donuts - taking regular donuts apart like a software program and putting them back together in new and sometimes dangerous configurations. Some of these configurations even involve bacon, which is nature’s perfect food because it both nurtures you and eventually kills you. As usual, a long line stood between me and my creamy quarry.

I don’t mind the long lines at the Donut Factory, mainly because someone in the kitchen is usually playing music while she cooks. The first time I went, I heard some Talking Heads; the next time, Radiohead. No matter how much I like the music, though, I have never commented on it, because talking about music with young people is always dangerous.

Last Saturday was the day the donut music died.

I stood in line enjoying a series of B-52 songs, one of which I did not recognize. Because the song interested me, I felt compelled to ask where I could get it. What I should have asked was...

“Hey, you guys have great taste in music. What B-52s song is that? I’d like to download it.”

Then I should have pulled my pants low, low on my ass like Justin Bieber and adjusted my ironic trucker hat so that it wasn’t straight.

But I didn’t. I was still sleepy, I hadn’t had my coffee yet and I completely forgot that I was pretending to not be 45 years-old. What I said was...

“What CD are you playing?”

The confused look in the young cashier’s eyes froze me like a raccoon caught in a garbage can. I  looked around at the other younger people in the shop to see if they had heard my slip. Besides the cashier, no one looked confused. Good. I looked back at the cashier and this is what I repeated in my head...

“Please don’t ask me what a CD is. Please don’t ask me what a CD is. Please don’t ask me what a CD is.”

Her eyes unclouded and became sweetly sympathetic.

“It’s an IPod. You can load it up with thousands of songs and it will play them randomly.”

With my eyes, I begged her to stop.

“No one buys CDs anymore. You buy songs on the Internet.”

I considered whipping out my Iphone. Instead, I just pulled out my leather wallet on a chain and paid for the very cool donuts.